When I recently browsed through my regular Swiss family blog, I read an article about “well dones” with your children, and the invitation to blog about our own things that we, in our opinion, do well when it comes to raising kids. And since I couldn’t stop thinking about this question, I decided to join Severine and write about it. It can’t be too difiicult to find some things we do well, can it?

Well, apparently it can.

Again and again I pondered, trying to find situations or behaviours where I can pat myself on my back and honestly say to myself: “well done!”

Politeness, for instance. I think it is important and I try to teach my children the same. The children know the basic rules. I have also perfected a non-verbal way of communicating that the word “please” is missing (a slight raise of my eyebrows is all it takes). I pay attention that they say thank you when they receive gifts. But it doesn’t mean that they do it all the time. Ha, no, definitely not. I can’t really claim a success here so far.

Food comes to mind. I don’t need to cook any special children meals. My kids are open to try new stuff – recently, they tried octupus cups (even I surrendered!) – and they are eating enough vegetables. They love to play “vegetable thief”. When I prepare dinner, I often start the preparations with putting a small plate of vegetables on the table and I say with a smile and an important voice “You are not allowed to eat any of these. Not under any circumstances!”. And then the fun begins. It’s quite good, really. But there are too many times when I prepare something really quick instead of something healthy. Noodles with ketchup, frozen pizza (heated up, obviously) or sweet rice. And talking of food: the table manners. A cause for regular breakdowns on my side. Somehow, it seems impossible for my kids to calmly sit for ten minutes. My threat to build a pigsty in our garden where they can eat causes utmost delight and amusement among them.

Mh, what are we doing well? Tantrums are a regular thing right now, there is noone tidying up but me, and it’s not like the kids are doing anything I tell them to do. Sometimes, I wonder whether they actually hear me. Prime example from last week: I say “Ok, it’s time to brush your teeth!”. The little one replies: “Come, hobbit, let’s play hide and seek!” Ahem?

And anyway, there are always these dreadful days where everything goes wrong. I’m in a bad mood and I am grumpy with the kids and in the evening I sit on the couch and can’t stand myself, not as fellow human being and especially not as a mother. But then again, there are these rare times when I manage to face a tantrum patiently and calmly and lovingly. Then I do think “well done!” afterwards. But that surely can’t be it? I would love to be more patient, more fun, more relaxed as a mother. I would cook healthier, go outside more often and play more.

Maybe the husband and father has a good answer to the question what we have done well as parents?

Apparently not. When being asked the question, he bursted into laughter and asked back “Are you serious?” Yes, I am. A short pause of reflection followed. “That we made them?”

Well, he has a point there. We did that well! And by the way, I think we have two very lovely, funny and fine children. But I also think that this doesn’t necessarily depends on our way of upbringing. There are so many other factors which influence them, and then there’s their very own character and personality as well – we don’t want to forget that they are, after all, independent human beings, do we? For instance, the fact that the little one is really good company on hikes doesn’t have anything to do with my upbringing. It just happens. The thought to do something well (or not well) in terms of upbringing has, for me, the slightly bad connotation that one is trying to form the children. For me, it is more important what kind of role model we as parents try to be. We would like to show our kids the importance of being polite, empathic, tolerant and fair. But our kids are still really young – many of these values can’t be expected at their age.

Many things are positive or negative depending on other families I happen to compare us to. There are always situations where I think “My kids are doing this better!” or “Gee, I’m happy my kids are not doing this!”. At the same time there are moments when I think “I wish my children would do this too!”. Compared to some, I am a strict mother. Compared to others, I am not strict enough. Comparisons are dangerous. Either they go to your head, or they frustrate. One should really stop comparing.

And anyway, when I as a mother am not able be happy with myself in terms of raising children, doesn’t it also imply that I am not happy with my children? Doesn’t critisizing me also means critisizing my children? (At this point, I was by the way really frustrated with myself).

It’s not like this! My kids are driving me crazy every now and then, yes. But they are awesome, and they are awesome exactly the way they are! We love them more than anything! Maybe one shouldn’t just stop comparing oneself, but one should also trust more in one’s abilities as parents. Be less self-critical. Care less about the opinions in public. And be less critical towards our children.

At one point, I asked the little one about her opinion. What do you think I’m doing well as your mom? She said I always take good care of her and I can console her very well. That made me happy. And then she also liked that I always give her sweets. (I couldn’t resist a triumphant “Ha!” in my thoughts, because the grandparents are always seriously worried that our children suffer from not being allowed any sweets. I herewith officially disprove this assumption!)

And then, I finally found something that we do well. Absolutely. It’s the thing with the imagination and the story-telling. To understand it, you need to know that the little one, when she was little, insisted on songs about her two best friends. After insisting long enough, Karsten finally gave in and made up a song. Poetry slam, so to say, just – well, without the poetry. Since this very evening, the little one loves to listen to made-up songs. It is not as easy as it sounds, but once you stop trying to sound melodic and to come up with proper rhymes, it’s fine. We have a standard melody from a children song, and then Karsten just starts singing, most of the times rather dissonant and with a terrible structure, but with a high entertaining value.

After a while, the little one wanted to listen to hippo songs. And every evening, she came up with new ideas what the song should include. One of the coolest songs was supposed to include a hippo that got stuck in the slide, holding a star and something purple colored was supposed to be on the ground.

Sometimes the hippo gets replaced by a penguin. And often Karsten is simply asked to sing about what happened during the day.

I don’t do the improvised singing so much, but I prefer stories and rhymes. That’s a great advantages when going on hikes. Or when I try to distract the children in various moments. When brushing their hair, for instance. Since I started to come up with nonsense-rhymes during the brushing, there are no more tears. Before that, it was a drama.

By now, the little one is a good storyteller herself. She sings made-up songs. Dissonant and with a weird way of rhyming, but truly heartwarming and great. She sings hippo songs for the hobbit. And she comes up with awesome stories. Imagination is so important, in my opinion. Without imagination life is boring, and without imagination you won’t achieve much in life. And simply start telling nonsense is an art too.

Yes. I’d say that’s something we have done well so far! And hopefully some other things, too.

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About erdhummel

Familial entropy - that's an insight into our current life which has been fundamentally changed last summer when our daughter was born. Having studied in Cottbus, Germany, and worked/studied in Edinburgh, Scotland, we momentarily live in a small town in Switzerland where Karsten is trying to save the environment and Freddie is trying to save our sanity. Since there is not much time for elaborate, long emails while doing that, we thought a blog might be a good option to smuggle ourselves into the lifes of our friends.